Cain's Book

London: John Calder, 1963.

First Edition, first printing. Original publisher's red cloth with the unclipped dust-jacket which is slightly stained at the spine and generally rather toned. Free of any inscriptions, etc. A VG+ copy. Known as the "Scottish Beat", Trocchi's relentlessly bleak roman à clef focuses on Joe Nechhi, a Glaswegian heroin addict living and working on a scow in New York's Hudson harbour. It is a book almost entirely devoid of plot: Nechhi occasionally details trips into the city to score heroin, recollects his childhood in Glasgow, or talks of his efforts to write.